PT service: The good VS. The great
What you offer and how you deliver it is what separates good personal training service from an outstanding one.
It is so important as a business to be continuously striving toward building a better service and ultimately, a better client experience.
When you have a top tier personal training service, this is what you get:
Retention: The more clients you keep, the less you have to find. This is the best way to conserve resources. Finding a new client is much harder than keeping current ones. A top tier service should give you a retention rate of at least 50%.
Referrals: If your current clients are happy, they will be walking, talking billboards for your business. There is no better way to advertise than others doing it for you.
Reputation: Clients who enjoy your service will tell others. You’ll get better results and make a name for yourself in your space.
Authority: With reputation comes authority. Authority is so important for your leads. Your clients want to know that you are the best person for them. How your service is set up shows professionalism. That professionalism is a sign of authority. It shows you take your business seriously.
Income: If you have a top-tier service, you can charge more. We all want to charge what we are worth. Your service is a reflection of what you can charge and people's perceived value to buy.
Not sold on it yet? Here are some statistics to show you how important having outstanding services can be:
“84% of organisations working to improve customer service report an increase in revenue” - Dimension Data
“86% of consumers are willing to pay up to 25% more for a better customer experience.” - RightNow
“Acquiring a new customer is anywhere from five to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one.” - Harvard Business Review
Building a top-tier service
What you can include and how it is delivered:
Training program: Create a structured training program for your PT clients that is delivered digitally or in paper form.
This is the focal point of your business and is a must-have. We advise you to go digital, using either a training app or spreadsheet app. (More efficient and less impact on the environment)
Nutrition (coaching/prescription): If you are not qualified to give nutrition advice, you can still provide a coaching service with resources you have collected, to help your clients achieve their goals. We like Precision Nutrition’s Hand Plan. We also use the recommendations for nutrition from the International Society of Sports Nutrition, as well as Examine.com.
Warm-up protocol: A great time investment for your business, and an efficient way to move to a 30 min face-to-face model, is by creating a warm-up resource. Film either exercises or an upper and lower body warm-up routine that your clients can watch. Ask them to complete it before they start their session with you.
Face-to-face Training: The gold standard for most personal trainers in terms of their service. Set the expectations of how each session goes and what the sessions are for. Your clients must be warmed up and also prepared to finish the workout if you don't complete it together.
When it comes to keeping your clients on track, it's all about language. Speak as if the session is an opportunity for you to catch up and work on the things that need improvement. Encourage your clients to spend their time with you wisely. The result of this will be faster progress, better feedback and those walking billboards we mentioned earlier.
Check-in: This is a top-tier addition to any service. When you check in with your clients between sessions, you give yourself time to solve the problems that you don't have time to work on or discuss during a session.
Checking in will also keep your clients committed outside of your face-to-face session and give you great data to track results and trends.
If you run an online business, a check-in is a must!
Education & Resources: Another time investment you can add to your business. Remember, there is no pressure to have these resources immediately. You will need to formulate these over time. That is how pretty much every other business before you has done it.
Think about the most common questions, problems and situations that come up with your clients. Now think if there is a way to solve them with resources and education that removes your time input to each client individually.
Examples of some resources STCfit uses:
Mindset/Goal Setting
Nutrition
Exercise Library
Startup/Welcome videos: how to videos, setting expectations etc.
Community Group: A community group can be a great way to communicate important information across your client base quickly. Having a Facebook group, for example, is also a good platform for your clients to get to know each other and form relationships. Community groups also allow you to run “exclusive” content. This can be both an exclusive, paid or free service which adds value to paying customers or is part of a lead generation strategy (which is free to everyone).
Q&A’s, Lives, Workshops, etc: These are a great way to add value, pick up new leads, establish yourself as the authority and deliver information to the masses.
In our experience, sharing content in this way works well but the frequency and time commitments need to be worth it. It might serve you best doing these monthly for example, so you get consistent engagement. But keep an eye on your results. You shouldn’t be putting effort into making content if there is no payoff.
Make the service your own
Your service should be designed to solve your clients’ biggest problems.
Think of your clients’ biggest challenges and how you can solve them. Write a list for each. Start with three big problems then come up with as many ideas as you can for solutions.
Now review each solution and ask yourself:
Is it time-efficient?
Do I have the skills to deliver this?
Can I charge a premium fee for this?
Would I be happy with how this service is delivered and the inclusions?
The answers to these questions will help you customise a top-tier personal training service that stands out.
